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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23798503">that's where you'll find me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ManaGummi/pseuds/ManaGummi'>ManaGummi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>dearly, softly, beloved [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kingdom Hearts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Before DDD, Canon Compliant, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship, featuring a cameo by sora's ugly ukulele case, post kh2, rated t for terribly tuned ukuleles, riku has emotions and doesn't like it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:21:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,983</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23798503</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ManaGummi/pseuds/ManaGummi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Riku blinks again. Somehow, he was not expecting this. Any of this. Not sleeping in his childhood bed, not Sora climbing through his window, not being invited to the beach, not being able to see that beach again at all. It’s all painfully familiar yet strangely foreign as it settles in his heart, and distantly he knows that he should just say “sure” and follow Sora’s lead wherever he decides to go. He should just try to slip back into life as it once was, before keyblades and blindfolds and one very, very long and lonely year. All he has to do is say yes right now.<br/>---------<br/>Home, two boys, and a song.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>dearly, softly, beloved [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1733125</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>126</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>that's where you'll find me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>here we go y'all ukulele fic sees the light of day</p><p>extremely huge and tearful thanks to my beta readers Rose (BigDykeEnergy here on AO3) and Cin (mxbluesky here on AO3) without whom this fic would have wilted away in my drafts for eternity. please go check out both of their works and send them kindness and love because they both really, really deserve it</p><p>feel free to come yell with me on twitter @managummi</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Riku wasn’t sure if the islands were his home anymore.</p><p>In a strange twist, it had nothing to do with a long held desire to escape the tedium of the islands, or with a deep, festering jealousy that flooded his veins like poison. No, this time Riku wasn’t sure if the islands were his home because he wasn’t sure if they were allowed to be. He had crash landed into salty ocean water barely twelve hours ago, swept up into hugs and tears and long overdue family reunions that had left him lightheaded and hazy until well after his mother had awkwardly wished him good night in his old bedroom. Riku had crawled into his bed bleary and confused, out of place in a way he’d never before experienced, and collapsed onto the mattress with the hope that some sleep would leave him feeling better in the morning.</p><p>That might have worked if Riku had managed to actually sleep.</p><p>Instead, he was staring at the ceiling of his room while he desperately tried to stop thinking long enough to fall into unsteady rest. Sometimes he almost managed it, the old posters he’d plastered to the ceiling fading into a blissfully quiet haze, but before sleep could take hold he’d feel a phantom shock of electricity in his left hand or a searing brand burning into his side, jerking him back into adrenaline fueled awareness and forcing him to start the whole process over again. Other times he’d close his eyes and imagine musty air filling his lungs as he sat on a silent beach with black sand beneath his palms, and the peaceful resignation that would wash over him would lull him into something resembling rest. Then he’d remember blue eyes and bright light and he’d startle with a gasp, blinking his eyes open as he tried to shake the sudden crushing pressure on his ribs. Riku hadn’t slept for a single second, and at this point he was certain that wasn’t going to change.</p><p>He trails his eyes around the room to distract himself, mentally cataloging the items and decorations he remembered and those he didn’t. There were posters from his favorite games, worn action figures on his bookshelf that he only distantly remembers playing with, a couple of pristine plush toys that Sora had gifted him. All of them should have filled him with nostalgic warmth, comforted him on a long and dreary sleepless night. Instead he only felt lonely, disconnected from a room and belongings he once loved. It felt as though he resided in a sacred space meant for a completely different person, one who deserved to come back from the end of the world and feel at peace. Riku felt like he was trespassing that person’s life, and he couldn’t tell how that made him feel.</p><p>Riku did know that in that other life, he would not have been jolted awake by the sound of his bedroom window sliding open. He would not have jumped to his feet with one arm braced in front of him and the other extended out to the side, ready to call his keyblade at a moment’s notice. Riku would not have watched with wide, frantic eyes and a pounding heartbeat as he saw Sora, just Sora, crouched in the windowsill with a small, lilting smile that seemed to understand every panicked thought running through Riku’s mind.</p><p>In another life, Riku might have considered this a normal morning where Sora lounged around Riku’s room while Riku got ready for their walk to school. He had that life once, could maybe have it again now if he was careful. Somehow, Riku didn’t think it would be that simple.</p><p>What was simple was taking a deep breath, in for five and out for ten, eyes closed as the numbers ticked by in his mind, and then meeting blue, blue eyes on the exhale. Sora was sitting in the window now, having pulled himself fully into the room while Riku was gathering himself, legs idly kicking the wall beneath him while he watched Riku with a bright, gentle gaze. He seemed at ease, comfortable in this tiny room on a tiny island even though neither of them had been here in well over a year. Riku wondered if that was really the case. Riku wondered if he was still able to read Sora as well as he once could.</p><p>Riku wondered a lot, lately.</p><p>The soft thump of Sora’s heels against the wall brings Riku back to attention, and he blinks once, twice, lowers his arms back to his sides, and clears his throat. “Hey,” he murmurs gruffly. It’s a weak, raspy greeting, not nearly as nonchalant as he was aiming for, but Sora perks up anyway and smiles.</p><p>“Let’s go to the play island,” he chirps.</p><p>Riku blinks again. Somehow, he was not expecting this. Any of this. Not sleeping in his childhood bed, not Sora climbing through his window, not being invited to the beach, not being able to see that beach again at all. It’s all painfully familiar yet strangely foreign as it settles in his heart, and distantly he knows that he should just say “sure” and follow Sora’s lead wherever he decides to go. He should just try to slip back into life as it once was, before keyblades and blindfolds and one very, very long and lonely year. All he has to do is say yes right now.</p><p>“What time is it?” is what he says instead, and he tries very hard not to smack himself.</p><p>Sora laughs at that, shockingly quiet for a boy so full of life, and just kicks the wall below him with his heel again. “Like, five in the morning. Did you know the lock on your window is still broken?”</p><p>Riku had not known that. He also does not let Sora distract him. “Shouldn’t you still be asleep for the next day or something? I thought you couldn’t even exist this early,” he quips, a little astonished at how easily it slips out. The words almost feel wrong on his tongue, like jokes and teasing jibes aren’t meant for his use anymore.</p><p>Thankfully, Sora hops off the windowsill and tucks his hands behind his head before Riku can get too caught up in his own head again. “Hey, I can exist at any time just fine, ya know! Donald and Goofy have gotten me up way earlier than this.” He tilts his head to the side and smiles that soft smile that makes Riku’s heart twist with way too many emotions for him to process at five in the morning. Truthfully, Riku can’t process any of what’s going on right now, and probably wouldn’t be able to even if it was later in the day. He’s been back home for barely a night, and everything feels so right and so wrong that he gets dizzy every time he moves, emotional whiplash wreaking havoc on his fragile heart and hazy mind.</p><p>The only other time Riku has felt this off-kilter was when he watched the one person who mattered sleep in a sterile white pod in a silent white room. But Sora’s not sleeping anymore, is he?</p><p>Sora is here in Riku’s bedroom on Destiny Islands, now lazily stretching his arms above his head and yawning wide. Riku can see the straight rows of his teeth in that yawn, and for one bizarre moment he thinks that it’s a good thing Sora had already gotten his braces off before… everything. He can’t imagine Sora finding an orthodontist in his adventures across the universe. And would anyone have been able to take the dashing Hero of Light seriously with a mouth full of metal brackets and rainbow colored rubber bands?</p><p>The sputter that escapes Riku at that thought is as sudden as it is surprising, and when Sora quirks an eyebrow at him with a confused pout Riku only manages a hiccuping giggle, sputtering a little helplessly even as a fresh wave of dizziness washes over him.</p><p>Sora laces his hands behind his head again, his pout is stuck on his face but his eyes are twinkling with something light and airy that Riku is not in the state of mind to name. “Oooookay,” Sora drawls as he rolls his eyes. “Gonna just assume you’re thinking something mean about me. Or you’ve finally cracked like a coconut. Either seems pretty likely with you.”</p><p>Wheezing out the remnants of his giggling, Riku echoes Sora’s eye roll. “If I ever go insane it’s only because I spend so much time around you.” A fresh bout of giggles hits him as Sora squawks in mock outrage. Riku is dizzy and wobbly and fuzzy around the edges, only distantly aware of the choking laughter falling past his lips, and maybe this should make him nervous. Maybe this is a sign that he <em>is</em> cracked like a coconut; that a year of too much solitude and too much hurt and too much desperate, frantic, undeserved hope had shattered everything Riku ever thought he was.</p><p>But at some point Sora starts giggling with him, hand over his mouth to try to keep his normally loud cackles hushed in the early morning peace of Riku’s childhood home. At some point Riku doubles over and clutches at his sides as he laughs and gasps and tries to breathe, and Sora looks no better and maybe Riku is damaged and hurting but maybe Sora is too. It’s horrifying because Sora should never be hurt, but comforting in that Riku won’t have to figure out how to glue himself back together alone.</p><p>Riku doesn’t have to do anything by himself now.</p><p>“C’mon, let’s get going,” he finally croaks out, cheeks pained from smiling and heart feeling something close to full. If Sora’s answering smile makes Riku weak all over again, giddy and heady and maybe somewhat in love, well… no one needs to know except himself.</p>
<hr/><p>Climbing out Riku’s bedroom window is shockingly easy. Riku remembers more than one bad tumble from the tree he and Sora always used to escape Riku’s house late at night, most of the falls and subsequent scratches belonging to Sora. Now though, it’s a smooth glide down (almost literally, in Sora’s case) and Riku barely thinks anything of it until he and Sora are halfway down the street.</p><p>Sora, for his part, doesn’t seem to be stuck in the weird spot-the-difference puzzle Riku has been fixated on since they all arrived home last night. He sways down the street with a skip in his step that Riku has seen a thousand times, fitting into everything so perfectly that for a moment Riku has to wonder if he was ever really gone. Sora’s like that, though. Comfortable in his skin, adaptable, accepting, able to become whatever he or anyone else needs at the time. Riku has the brief thought that maybe Sora is being what Riku needs right now, familiar and simple and light. He decides he’s still not awake enough to dwell on that thought.</p><p>What he <em>does</em> dwell on is the bright, obnoxiously colored instrument case casually slung over Sora’s shoulder. It’s a goofy, touristy looking thing, flashy colors and fakey tropical print hibiscus flowers all over the canvas exterior. Riku remembers it well, he and Kairi had bought the damn thing for Sora’s twelfth birthday. They had bickered back and forth on which one was gaudy enough for Sora’s eclectic taste, and in the end they almost spent more time picking the case than they had spent picking what they’d put inside it: Sora’s ukulele.</p><p>For about the billionth time in less than twelve hours, Riku is hit with a weird onslaught of memories and emotions and a strange, aching feeling in his chest. He is definitely still not ready to deal with it.</p><p>So he doesn’t.</p><p>“Think you still remember how to play that thing?” Riku quips as he bumps the shoulder Sora’s case is resting on. Sora shoves back in the next beat, easy and simple and everything Riku is not sure he is allowed to have anymore.</p><p>“Of course!” And oh, is Sora’s smile always so bright. For a moment, Riku is lost on a dark beach with cold sand, dark waves, and a warm, constant light next him, content to fade into death and darkness as long as that light never lets go. Riku isn’t really sure it was only yesterday that he felt that way.</p><p>He’s jolted from his latest dive into his own head when Sora starts to speak again. His tone is carefully light, and his chosen topic equally casual, and Riku is deeply grateful when he realizes that Sora is trying to help, simply babbling nonsense to give Riku just enough to latch his mind onto without the pressure of being expected to pay attention. It’s not the first time Sora has done such a thing in their long, long friendship, but it’s the first time the action makes Riku’s eyes sting with unshed tears.</p><p>Sora is kind enough to not mention when Riku is quiet for a moment as he grapples his emotions back into check.</p><p>Sora is kind enough to keep chattering, with minimal input from Riku, until they reach the dock and pick through the worn fleet of rowboats to find one that could fit them both.</p><p>Sora is not, however, kind enough to stifle his laughter as Riku tries to fold his still unfamiliar (and long - shit was he really this tall?) limbs into one end of the rowboat. Riku’s almost scrambled enough to let him get away with it, but he recovers just in time to smirk and push the oars into Sora’s hands. “Laugh it up while you’re rowing us there.”</p><p>Sora shrieks a peal of laughter. “Riku! No fair!” he manages between giggles as he picks up the oars and pushes off from the dock anyway. There’s something tender and soft in the glint of his blue eyes that Riku stubbornly refuses to place, especially when he is painfully hunched over in a too tiny rowboat slowly drifting towards the island where he kind of ruined everyone’s lives. Tender, soft emotions would have to come later, or, if Riku’s self-loathing had any say in the matter, never, and Riku would waste away a miserable husk of a boy who couldn’t hurt anyone ever again.</p><p>Dramatic, but effective. Riku had a thing for that.</p><p>By the time Sora pulls himself onto the play island’s dock and starts to tie off the boat, Riku is well huddled into himself as he wallows in his own misery. It’s not his most flattering personality trait, he’s well aware, but he’s been through a lot, and he feels well within his rights to be an emotional teenager about it for a moment. Considering that Riku doesn’t feel like he’s within his rights to do much anymore, he’ll take what he can get. Besides, his own pain barely compares to that which he’s inflicted on so ma-</p><p>“Riku!”</p><p>Riku jolts out his huddle so violently that the rowboat tips to the side at a dangerous angle, and it’s only a lifetime of riding the damn things that keeps Riku from pitching over the side into the chilled ocean water. He expects Sora to laugh, because Sora always laughs when Riku’s “cool guy facade” slips into something clumsy and awkward, but instead Sora looks… concerned. Pensive too. He’s half leaned over the dock with a hand extended toward Riku to help him up, the corners of his mouth drawn ever so slightly down and his eyes are slightly pinched at the corners. Sora wore his heart on his sleeve and his every emotion on his face, and something about remembering that fact because of Sora’s worried stare has Riku rushing to grasp his hand and let Sora haul him out the rowboat. The worn wood of the dock creaks under their weight, and Riku suddenly feels so much older than he is.</p><p>But Sora happens to not give Riku any time to mull on yet another change that he has to come to terms with and smacks Riku on the back before blinking the concern from his face and marching off the dock. Riku follows (because of course he does, all Riku’s ever done is follow Sora) and tries not to let his stomach twist itself into a nauseous knot when he realizes that Sora is heading straight for the paopu tree. Like, <em>the</em> paopu tree. The tree where Riku once offered Sora his hand right before he let himself be consumed by darkness.</p><p>And right before he ruined everything.</p><p>However, Sora doesn’t seem to notice Riku’s new brand of turmoil, or has chosen to ignore it, and keeps ambling toward the paopu tree. Riku wants to tell him to stop, come back. Maybe they can just sit on the beach today and let the water lap over their feet in the sand, but Riku also wants to give Sora this, a piece of normalcy that he hasn’t had in so long, a chance to be just be Sora again after a year and some change of stasis chambers and fighting, fighting, fighting. So Riku sucks it up, takes a deep breath, shoves his hand in his pocket, and follows until he is leaned faux-casual against the rough, bent trunk of the paopu tree.</p><p>The earth does not shatter beneath his feet like he thought it would. Neither does his heart burst through his ribs or his stomach lurch like a ship at sea during a storm. All that happens is that he settles against the tree with a practiced, easy motion that soothes something deep inside of him. Sora hops up onto the trunk at his side, and it is almost alarming how easily they slide back into being just Sora and Riku. Side by side as the sky begins to morph into the faint blues and pinks of early morning. Riku feels his throat tighten at the thought that, maybe after it all, there is still a chance for them to still be just Sora and Riku. To still live as just themselves without the fate of worlds or the eternal balance of light and dark resting upon them.</p><p>Maybe it’s not too much to think the universe owes them that, at the very least.</p><p>The rustling shuffle of fabric and the clean cut of a zipper filters through Riku’s muddle of thoughts, and he turns his head to find Sora gently lifting his ukulele out of the case now in his lap. There’s a kind of care in the motion that Riku hasn’t seen from Sora in a long time. Gentle and soft, almost reverent. Sora had been soft during the brief moments they’d been together on their journey, of course. Riku will never shake the image of tears falling from a crumpled freckled face and tan hands grasping his own like a lifeline, but there was a desperation in those actions, a sorrow that Riku is slightly afraid to admit he would destroy worlds to prevent seeing in Sora again.</p><p>Now, though, there is no sorrow, no undertone of prolonged pain. Sora simply sets the ukulele in his lap and cradles the fretboard with his left hand, his smile small but so warm and almost intimate that Riku feels his face heat up at the sight. He watches as Sora runs careful fingers over the dark wood of the instrument, traces the swirls of golden paint that frame the bridge. The air around them is hushed, only the faint rustling of trees in the ocean breeze whispers around them. It’s almost as if the play island itself is waiting with bated breath, desperate for the song of a boy who almost never made it back home.</p><p>Riku’s maybe a little desperate for it too.</p><p>But Sora hesitates as he runs his fingers soundlessly up and down the strings. Riku almost asks what’s wrong, but as Sora idly kicks one foot and fiddles with a tuning peg Riku realizes with horrible clarity that he’s not the only one that doesn’t feel like he fits anymore. “Sora-”</p><p>“Ya know,” Sora cuts him off, and when did Sora start to sound so <em>tired</em>? “It’s kinda stupid, but I’m nervous.”</p><p>“It’s not stupid.” The words fly out of Riku’s mouth before he can even fully process what he wants to say, but that’s… that’s okay. Because they’re true. Even without knowing what Sora even means, Riku knows with absolute certainty that it’s not stupid. It will never be stupid, and Sora looking at Riku with tender, fragile hope on his face only steels Riku’s conviction. “It’s okay. To be nervous, I mean. We’ve, uh- we’ve been through a lot, and I-” He trails off, culling the dangerous and vulnerable words building on the tip of his tongue before they can spill over and down, down, down until he can’t catch them. Until they break this sense of peace before he’s even had time to savor it. Riku is tired of breaking things, but he’s not sure he’s strong enough to build something new and beautiful instead.</p><p>He thinks then, in a moment of brilliant clarity where Sora tilts his hopeful little smile towards him, that maybe it won’t hurt to at least try.</p><p>Deep breath in. Slow breath out. “I think,” Riku starts again. “That whatever you’re feeling right now is okay, even if it doesn’t feel okay.” Sora cocks his head at that, quietly prompting Riku for more. “You’re not going to wake up and suddenly have everything processed and figured out, you know? You need to give yourself time, Sora,” he finishes in a quick, breathy whisper.</p><p>Sora stares at him, still and quiet with his bottom lip stuck between his teeth. He stares for so long that Riku starts to fidget under Sora’s unusually still gaze, starts to worry that maybe he said too much or said the wrong thing, and just as he pulls in a sharp inhale, ready to take back all he said, Sora beats him to the punch.</p><p>“Then you gotta give yourself time too, Riku.”</p><p>And Riku sees everything in Sora’s eyes at that moment. He sees hope and kindness and forgiveness and above all, above everything, Riku sees a future where he is okay. Tears sting at his eyes again and he’s suddenly too warm and shaky as he gasps. Sora’s gaze is too much too quickly, earnest and sincere, and maybe it’s a coward’s move but Riku has to duck his head and let his too long bangs provide him a moment to hide as he forces himself to breathe in slow and steady motions.</p><p>Through the curtain of his hair Riku can see the colors of sunrise bleed farther into the ocean sky, and he can’t help but think back to other mornings in this spot, other days when three kids chattered about life and adventure to the backdrop of waves, ocean breeze, and the lazy strumming of a ukulele. And as if on cue, a four note chord fills the air.</p><p>And it’s <em>horrible</em>.</p><p>“Ugh, gross,” Sora mutters off to Riku’s side, and when Riku turns to look at his best friend he almost laughs at the look of pained disgust painting Sora’s features. “I knew it’d be out of tune but that’s just awful.” He plucks the fourth string experimentally, grimacing at the sad groan that echoes from it, and Riku does laugh this time, chuckling fondly and somewhat helplessly at the range of expressions that flutter across Sora’s face as he tunes each string to the proper pitch. This too, like so much else, is familiar. It settles like a blanket over Riku’s shoulders, albeit one that’s too warm and a bit stifling, and he turns to watch the colors of the sky as Sora finishes tuning.</p><p>When Sora finally gets it where he wants, humming a satisfied little noise at the end, he turns to Riku. “I’m a little rusty, so no teasing while I warm up, okay?”</p><p>Riku shoots him a smirk. “But you’re such an easy target, Sora.”</p><p>And Sora laughs bright and brilliant, eyes crinkled at the corners before he smooths his expression into a smirk of his own. “Yeah well, if you tease me then I definitely won’t sing you a song like I’d planned.”</p><p>Riku’s heart immediately goes into double-time, syncopated with his quickening breaths as he mentally fumbles over Sora’s words. Because maybe this is just another Sora-ism, maybe he’s just being silly and bright like he always is to everyone, but Sora has never sang for Riku or Kairi, never sang outside of elementary school performances from all those years ago. Yet here now, Sora casually tells Riku that he brought them both to the play island at 5:40 in the morning, before the sun is even up, to sing for Riku.</p><p>Riku’s mouth is a little dry.</p><p>“Oh yeah, and when did you learn to sing?”</p><p>Riku’s mouth is also apparently not working.</p><p>For a moment Riku panics, because the deal was no teasing and Riku blew it in record time. He’s halfway to blurting out an apology when Sora laughs again, and even through his frantic thoughts Riku is aware that each time Sora laughs it sounds a little more genuine. Sora chuckles, eyes squinted with mirth, and strums a few lazy chords in the process.</p><p>“Well,” he drawls, moving his fingers from a G chord to a C, his right hand easily falling back into a strum pattern despite over a year of gripping nothing but a weapon. “If you really wanna know, I learned to sing from a mermaid princess.” Down, down, up, down, up. Smoothly change chords. Repeat. “And a crab, but that makes me sound less impressive.”</p><p>The snort that forces its way out of Riku is neither planned nor dignified, but it does make Sora flash him a toothy grin, and that’s worth the embarrassed flush crawling up Riku’s neck. They lapse into relative quiet then, Sora playing lazy half scales as he re-acquaint himself with his instrument. The sun is just now peeking over the horizon, bathing the beach in golden pink hues, and Riku feels settled, grounded and firm. So at ease that, for the first time in forever, his eyes slip closed in a drowsy haze, his back stable against the solid trunk behind him. He could doze like this, he thinks, propped against the paopu tree and safe in the knowledge that if he swayed too far in slumber then Sora would catch him. Sora will always catch him. Sora, Sora, Sora-</p><p>Sora starts to sing.</p><p>And oh, his lessons with the mermaid princess and the crab have truly paid off, because where Sora once sang with wobbly pitch and nasally tone, he now sings full and stable, if a little shy. He’s quiet in the early island dawn, soft in a way Sora rarely sounds, and there’s something tucked away in the rise and fall of each word he sings that plucks at Riku’s heart like the strings of the ukulele. It strums the breadth of his heart and reverberates through Riku’s entire being, each word harmonized not only with the ukulele but with Riku’s very soul. He feels raw and vulnerable as Sora continues, and Riku wants to look at him, wants to see what expression Sora wears in such a delicate moment but Riku’s delicate right now, too. One look would shatter him, and Sora would pick up the pieces and put him back together but Riku knows that action alone would break him apart again.</p><p>So Riku doesn’t look, but when the first quiet tear overflows and cascades down his cheek, he doesn’t try to hide it. He just listens to a quiet, sweet voice and let’s himself cry.</p><p>The sky is brilliant now, warm jewel tones and gentle beams of light stretching as the day wakes. The sun paints the sand at Riku’s feet a gentle rosy pink, and as Sora’s voice comes down for a final time, slow and soothing, Riku finally looks at Sora to see his cheeks dusted the same color. His blue eyes are brimming with that one emotion Riku has never dared to dream he would see in them, his smile small but warm, warm, warm and Riku’s adrift at sea with Sora as his only anchor and-</p><p>Just as he thought he would, Riku shatters, buries his face in his hands and hiccups out a sob as he’s slammed with feeling, with grief, with hope. He shakes apart against the paopu tree with Sora beside him and the last notes of a song ringing sweetly in his ears, and everything is too much that he’s not allowed to have, too much that he’s always wanted and that he knows he doesn’t deserve.</p><p>Warm fingers brush his knuckles, the heat of Sora’s calloused skin overwhelming in Riku’s current state. But when Sora starts to pry Riku’s hands off his face, gentle and slow in case Riku wants him to stop, Riku let’s him. Sora moved closer to him at some point, his jacket brushing Riku’s shoulder as his tan hands cradle Riku’s own pale ones with kindness and caring. Riku heaves another sob at the sight, pitches his head forward so his hair hides his blotchy, tear-stained face, and Sora simply laces their fingers together, squeezes Riku back when Riku clutches Sora’s hands like a lifeline. He’s falling apart by the tree where he once tore everything apart, but beneath the cresting fear and joy and anger and elation tumbling in his chest, Riku feels safe. Feels loved. Feels found.</p><p>Dawn breaks in a quiet burst around them, and Riku thinks maybe he fits after all.</p>
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